Sagapool is a gypsy jazz band from Montreal, Quebec. The band performs most often in Quebec. The six band members are Luzio Altobelli (

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

, double bass),

Guillaume Bourque Guillaume may refer to: People * Guillaume (given name), the French equivalent of William * Guillaume (surname) Other uses * Guillaume (crater) See also * '' Chanson de Guillaume'', an 11th or 12th century poem * Guillaume affair, a Cold War ...

(

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

), Alexis Dumais ( piano, rhodes, double bass), Zoé Dumais ( violin,

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

), Dany Nicolas ( guitar,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, double bass), Marton Maderspach (drum, double bass)

History

Sagapool was created in 1999 at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, and at that time was called Manouch. In 2002 the group released its first album, ''Apprenti Moustachu''. The band plays often in the province of Quebec; it has played many times at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and at the

Festi Jazz International de Rimouski Festi Jazz International de Rimouski is a jazz festival held every year from Thursday to Sunday of the first weekend of September in Rimouski, Quebec. The first edition of the festival was held in 1986. Despite the relatively small size of the c ...

, at the

Festival de la Chanson de Tadoussac A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

, and in many different places across Quebec. The band also played Ontario, in France and in the U.S., for the Blissfest in Michigan. The band's second album, ''St-Urbain Cafe'', was released in 2005; the album was nominated at the

ADISQ ADISQ (french: Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video; eng, Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries, link=yes) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the indepen ...

for best instrumental album of the year in 2006, and that year the band received the ROSEQ- RADARTS discovery award. In 2008 the name of the band was changed to Sagapool to reflect the more varied style of music that the band was playing. Sagapool was given the "Rising Star Award" for its performance at the ROSEQ that year. Also in 2008, they released a third album, ''Episode Trois'', which was selected as album of the week by the Montreal weekly newspaper Ici, nominated at the GAMIQ for best world music album of the year, and then named "Instrumental album of the year" at the

Canadian Folk Music Award The Canadian Folk Music Awards are an annual music awards ceremony presenting awards in a variety of categories for achievements in both traditional and contemporary folk music, and other roots music genres, by Canadian musicians. The awards progr ...

in November 2008. In 2012 Sagapool released its fourth album, ''Sagapool''.

Musical style

The musical influences of the band go from

klezmer Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...

, gypsy and manouche to ska, folk, Latin and jazz. Although inspired by some traditional songs, the band’s music is all original material and leaves a lot of room for improvisation."Sagapool Sagapool"
''Pop Matters'', by Deanne Sole 29 March 2012

Discography

* Apprenti Moustachu (2002) * St-Urbain Cafe (2005) * Episode Trois (2008) * Sagapool (2012)

References

External links

Official website of the band Sagapool
{{Authority control Musical groups from Montreal Canadian world music groups Canadian folk music groups Musical groups established in 1999 Musical collectives Canadian Folk Music Award winners 1999 establishments in Quebec